


The First Fertile Seed In All Of Time

by athriax



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 01:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20788685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athriax/pseuds/athriax
Summary: Castiel encounters the first human soul.





	The First Fertile Seed In All Of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the Castiel 10th anniversary zine Glory!, but was omitted from the final copy by the organizer.

For a time, God fashions Himself a toymaker.

Heaven and its confines are fluid and mercurial, ever-changing and infinite. All bends to God’s whim, and He keeps a workshop tucked away, though man does not yet exist to call it as such.

All creatures of the earth are crafted there, from mud and clay and stardust.

It is not a place the seraphim are allowed.

But there is a whisper in the Host, echoing, _echoing_. Of something new. Something special.

Something that begs to be seen.

***

Castiel should not be here.

He has floated through the vast, empty expanse of heaven as though drawn by a fine gold thread; sung sweet to by a new voice. Low and sonorous and imperfect, rumbling beneath the high, sweet, soaring song of the Host.

It has drawn him here, to the pocket of stars where God sits, and contemplates, and conceives all things.

But God has not been seen by the likes of him in quite some time. And really, isn’t the admiration of his work the purest way to give glory, glory, _glory_?

Castiel thinks so. So he is here, on the outskirts of a nebula that was old when first he flapped his wings.

And he is in awe.

***

Life on Father’s Earth is infinitesimal.

New and small and so fast, flickering, _fleeting_ that Castiel can barely see it. His fascination is the Host’s fascination. A dutiful fascination. A false fascination. He, as a single, solitary being has never felt the pull of a thing. The hook in the center of his being that draws him forward.

Until he sees his Father’s newest creation.

No, not creation. Nothing like the microns of matter twitching their way through the mud on the surface of the world.

This is a _being_.

A _child_.

Like him.

It loops lazily before him, a fraction of his size. Singing to him in a voice all its own.

_I am, I am, I am._

It shimmers the way auroras do. Pulling at the atmosphere around it with gentle, thieving tugs. Collecting an iridescent cloak for itself from the far-flung corners of existence.

Castiel is drawn to it, observing it for an eon in ever tightening, concentric circles.

And finally, he touches it. It feels nothing like the clean, searing burn of Castiel’s own grace.

It’s cool and fine against him, tangible yet incorporeal; existent yet not. It feels like the cool rains of God’s new world. Like the untouched mist of morning curling thick and damp through forests teeming with small, new life.

_What are you?_ Castiel thinks, as the soft _something_ curls around him.

A soul, a soul, a _soul_ the Host sings, reaching out to every angel like a ripple on water.

***

Time does not yet exist to lose track of, so Castiel remains there as suns flicker in and out of being. As his Father’s other, far-off creations hurl themselves into the vast abyss of entropy. As the _soul_ twines around the essence of him, tempering the scorching steel of his being with soft curiosity and imperfection and a capacity for _joyhopelove_ so strong he feels small in its wake.

He has never felt small.

The mountains that erupt through the cavernous, cragged crust of his Father’s ball of blue are _small_.

This something, this _soul_. It is as vast and neutronic and shining as any star.

It is not for angels to weep, and it is not for angels to _want_, but Castiel can almost grasp the feeling. Pressed close as he is to this incongruous, flawed, beautiful suggestion of a thing that _wants_ more than he would know how to contain.

The Hosts exists to praise God, a single unified force on which the weight of all that seething, heaving exultation rests. He cannot fathom what it is to _hunger_ for things the way this _soul_ does.

But. If he concentrates long enough. He can almost want to want.

***

He is lost for a time out of time. Allowing himself to be irreparably altered in ways he knows not.

Until a humming voice so deep it shakes loose asteroids off the shoulders of the Milky Way runs through him.

“Little brother, you do not stand in the presence of God.”

Castiel freezes, a sunshaft still entwined with the tantalizing, ephemeral glow of this newborn being.

A blazing comet waits patiently behind him, brilliant and blinding until it dims itself, condensing into a less nebulous form.

Gabriel is a being many faces, shot through with marbled cracks of fractured light, reaching on into eternity. Castiel thinks, as privately as he can in a Host full of voices singing, singing, _singing_, that he is his favorite brother.

The Messenger has always known what will be, and he reflects it down to every feather. Heads of animals that do not yet exist don his unending shoulders, and he wears a knowing grin on every face.

Including the new one.

“Do you like it?” he asks, as Castiel approaches. Drawn by the lull of brother, heaven, Host. The soul swims beside him, innocent and eager in its desire to know.

“Yes,” Castiel answers, reaching forward with his whole being; fire to fire, grace to grace. “Very much.”

The new face looks upon him with kind eyes. Far fewer eyes than he is used to. It seems to him like the faint echo of their Father, in his most far-off memories.

“What is it?” He asks, weaving his grace with Gabriel’s, wanting to examine more closely.

“Them,” Gabriel answers, drawing forth the hovering, shimmering soul. “It is them. Humanity. Father’s greatest creation.”

_Humanity_, Castiel thinks, basking in the feeling of the word. He had not known the power in the naming of a thing.

It is quiet in between galaxies, and they exist there together for an age; pressed together and watching the soul. It is peaceful. Castile had not known he needed peace.

Gabriel rumbles, and he is sad to see it go.

“A place is being made for them,” Gabriel intones, slowly surrounding the soul in his grace, tucking it away. And Castiel understands. He has seen what is not meant for him to see.

But he cannot regret it.

Gabriel’s grace is a balm against his own, flowing past him in a molten slipstream as he is drawn in, as the swell of the Host’s song slips to the forefront of his mind. The sweet, clear ringing of heavenly praise.

“Patience little brother. For I shall someday shew thee with tidings of Man.” Gabriel’s voice is the Host’s. The note of a high, clear bell. Harmonious as it eclipses him.

“Do not forget how beautiful they are, Castiel. How worthy.”

Gabriel’s newest face bestows a soft kiss to his brow, and then he is soaring once more among the Host.

Singing.

Singing.

_Singing._

Just a little out of tune.


End file.
